Magnetic microbots could revolutionize small-scale manufacturing

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

Earlier the month we reported on a new sort of networked mini-robot from Disney called a PixelBot. The idea was to have each unit assume the role of a single point in a larger picture, and to have them move in concert to create dynamic, programmable art. At the center of that initiative was the PixelBots’ ability to work as a swarm, which they do quite well, but new microbots from SRI International absolutely put them to shame.

An army of ant-like workers, ready for orders.

To be fair, PixelBots never really had a chance, as they move via wheels and a motor. These new, as-yet-unnamed microbots, are what’s called magnetically actuated, or moved by dragging with a magnetic field. The problem has always been that the magnetic fields used to do this will equally affect all the robots. That’s great if you want to have all the robots move as one, but terrible if you want them to work as a team doing different parts of one job.

This team was able to keep their magnetic fields localized to each robot by driving them on specially designed circuit boards. As you can see in the video below, this direct control of the microbots lets them move with incredible accuracy — and speed. Zipping around at up to hundreds of body-lengths per second, it can be agile in both straight-aways and tight corners.

The researchers use their nanobots to glue together lengths of carbon rod, taking turns completing each step like an assembly line. Their ability to do physical work is as small as they are (less than 3 millimetres across), but because their small masses are integral to allowing this sort of super-quick control, the idea will not scale up particularly well. Magnetically controlled robots will likely always be of the micro- variety.

A macro-structure built from sticks of carbon.

This research is, oddly enough, part of DARPA‘s open manufacturing initiative, which looks to dramatically lower the cost of automated, high-quality, high-throughput manufacturing. While most jobs are going to larger-scale robots, the sort that assemble cars for instance, small-scale robotics is poised to attack a whole different portion of the jobs market. If they were cheap and easily programmable enough, quick-moving little robots like these could fundamentally change manufacturing.

Where this technology gets truly interesting is in changing the scale. Only small groups have been tested thus-far, but large swarms could do a truly dizzying amount of work in a short periods of time. Like ants, their collective strength could be astonishing. Additionally, these hand-made robots could be made much, much smaller with the same control mechanism, opening even more doors in manufacturing.